


to feel whole again

by CrimeBrulee



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: M/M, Oh it's sad boy hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeBrulee/pseuds/CrimeBrulee
Summary: If Lio had disappeared with the Promare, leaving Galo behind.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 9
Kudos: 83





	to feel whole again

**Author's Note:**

> I had this sad idea during a meteor shower in ACNH with friends, shared it, and immediately got netted.

_Can you truly miss someone you just met?_

The thought plagues Galo as he goes through the motions.

_Busy. Keep busy._

He connects one task to the next.

 _Brush your teeth. Hop in the shower. Gel your hair. Slap together an omelet. Leave for work. Fight fires. Rebuild Promepolis. Return home. Turn on all the lights. Eat dinner. Exercise. Turn off all the lights. Go to sleep_. _Wake up. Rinse and repeat._

It’s only when he pauses that he remembers.

Galo flicks the last light off and shuffles toward his bed. He hasn’t cleaned for a few days, so empty water bottles clutter his bedside table and clothes drape across the floor. He’ll deal with it tomorrow.

It’s these hours before he falls asleep that hit the hardest. Galo sighs and punches his pillow into a wad, almost petulantly burying his face into it. 

It’s been a year since the disappearance of the Promare. Countless directives, grants, and programs have long since worked to help the displaced refuges find their way back into society. 

Hand in hand, the humans and the Burnish have started to rebuild.

_And Lio Fotia never got to see it._

Galo grits his teeth and clutches the pillow tighter.

 _Sleep. Sleep. Please just sleep_ , he wills himself, squeezing his eyes shut. This only seems to jumpstart his brain. He flings the pillow to the floor and kicks the covers from his bed in a fit. Pouting, he curls into a ball.

 _It wasn’t fair_. 

With a sigh, Galo swings his legs over the side of the bed. He sits there, surrounded by the thick of silence. Before Promepolis was destroyed, there had been the constant whir of car engines and peppering horns. He almost misses the noise. It was easier to drown out his own thoughts then. 

The air inside is too stale, so Galo strides to the window to wrench it open. He pauses, encapsulated in the moonlight, the breeze cool against his skin. 

One positive is that the lights of Old Promepolis no longer choked out the stars. 

He closes his eyes but only sees Lio’s face—that half smile that quirked his lips as he threw off his shirt to step into the _Galo de Lion._

“Fuck it—”

Galo is out the door before he even realizes he’s made up his mind, snatching his helmet on the way. His bike shudders beneath him and he takes off down the street. The rush of wind through his hair helps shove the memories back down. The motorcycle revs as Galo punches the gas.

He knows the way by heart, whipping through cracked streets and make-shift housing. As he drives, the buildings slowly morph into more permanent structures. The streets are smoother where they repaved them. A few people mill around to admire the painstaking effort, even in the dead of night. Promepolis never did sleep.

As the buildings give way to trees, a chill clings to the air. Galo skids to a halt in a plume of dust just meters from the lake at his secret spot. The ice has slowly reclaimed the lab there, but the _Galo de Lion_ sits in repose on the shore, face turned up as if gazing up at the stars. Galo plops cross-legged beside it, patting at its arm as if greeting an old friend.

“Hey there, buddy,” he mutters. 

It’s a lot bigger than Galo remembered. 

Being so close to the robot, Galo cannot stop the flood of memories. After holding it all in for so long, he’s not sure he _wants to_.

He closes his eyes and sees Lio, falling away to ash in the wrecked core of the _Parnassus_. He can still feel the warmth of fire in this throat as he pushes the spark back into Lio’s body. The lingering moment, that pause before the flame took. He still feels him against his lips. Hears the gentle sigh and the heave of his chest. Sees the way that his fingers curl. Smells the gentle drift of roses as Lio shifts back to life. That second that neither dared to move.

Galo grits his teeth and knocks his knuckles gently against his forehead. 

The ghost of that kiss has haunted him for a year. 

Galo sighs and peers up at _Galo de Lion_. “I miss him,” he says.

It feels odd to say it out loud, even just to himself. The words hang on the frosty air. They carve a hollow into the pit of his chest. 

Shaking his head, Galo clambers up _Galo de Lion_ and climbs inside, inserting himself into the pod where he and Lio had fought together a year ago. The machine does not respond without the so-called _fuel_ to the engine, but Galo feels safe there amidst the two tons of steel. He stares up at the second pod where Lio had joined him in battle. 

Galo had seen Pacific Rim. He _knew_ about drift compatibility—but he never imagined he’d ever experience it. 

But this whiplash of a man—who he’d fought then pursued then fought again—two polar opposites thrust into this situation together--

They’d clicked, like the last two gears in an elaborate machination.

And Galo saw into Lio’s soul as their wills synced.

He saw not only the leader of the Mad Burnish, petite but proud and barricaded in spiked armor against the world—but a soul that ached for his people. He saw a lonely boy wandering the streets of Detroit on a stolen motorcycle, thousands of miles from a home he’d left. The first spark of flame that filled fists already clenched against injustice. A fierce pride that burned for his people. The fear that he couldn’t be what his people needed. That strange, unease at the truth of the Promare. That the voices that drove him to burn had never been him. His condition had never been _him. Just who was he then?_

And Galo knew that Lio saw him too. 

A funny thing, being known was. Every bit of internalized loneliness that Galo shoved behind his _loudness_. The smile he’d plastered over uncertainty, as every failed effort to gain Kray’s approval drove deeper that sense of inadequacy and drove him harder to make a difference in Burning Rescue. _Saving people, that’s what I do_ —he’d repeated, over and over until he believed it. That was his purpose. That was the way that he could matter. But the medal he finally earned was more a weight on his chest than a prize.

 _Eyesore. Eyesore. Eyesore_.

Everything that Galo had believed—had worked for up until that point—stripped away in one callous remark by the man he’d looked up to most.

What did that leave him with?

Galo hadn’t realized that he wasn’t whole until their wills had synced. Didn’t know he was empty until Lio filled the void. 

_“What do you say we start one more fire—”_

Galo closes his eyes, and once again he can see that same smirk in Lio’s eyes. He’s stripped down to almost nothing, skin exposed and soul bared, already in the pod of _Galo de Lion_ , an arm outstretched for Galo to join him. Galo takes his hand. They sync again.

And together they lit the world on fire, Galo’s will protecting the people so that Lio could burn brighter and hotter than ever before.

Galo felt what Lio felt, in those few seconds after the robot touched down and the last of the blazes faltered. 

He felt that _wholeness,_ but also an ache as the last of the Promare drifted away, back to their own dimension. There was regret there. An emptiness. And then a split decision.

Galo felt Lio fade away even before he’d opened his eyes. And, in the place he’d been, an ache driven even deeper into his core. 

Galo Thymos was the only one to climb out of that robot. Lio was gone.

Galo grits his teeth, hissing through a few deep breaths to bite down a sob, shaking his head as he curls his fingers into his hair. He counts backwards from ten. Once he’s calm, he lets his head fall back to stare up at the stars.

They’d spent their last few minutes together up there.

But Galo, as he closes his eyes again, can feel him through the core of the robot, as bright and unwavering as the multitudes above him.

Wherever Lio is, he can _feel_ that he’s okay.

Was he missing him too?


End file.
